Loniu is an
Austronesian language spoken along the southern coast of
Los Negros Island in the
Manus Province, immediately east of
Manus Island in
Manus Province,
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...
. Loniu is spoken in the villages of
Loniu and Lolak, and there are estimated to be 450–500 native speakers, although some live in other Manus villages or on the mainland of Papua New Guinea.
Loniu generally fits with most of the observations made about Oceanic languages, specifically the
Admiralty Islands languages.
The six morphosyntactic features of 'Type B' Oceanic Languages (which include the Admiralties languages) as noted by Ross are found in Loniu. The language is essentially
SVO and contains prepositions.
Phonology
Consonant Phonemes
Vowel Phonemes
References
Notes
Sources
*
*
External links
*
Kaipuleohone's
Robert Blust collection includes
written and
recorded materials from Loniu
Manus languages
Languages of Manus Province
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